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PI OriginalAdam DosterWednesday May 20th, 2009, 11:12am

Quigley: Lower The County Veto Override Requirement

Rep. Mike Quigley is busy getting up to speed on all of the
legislation moving through Washington, but he still finds some time to
stick it to his old rival in Cook County, Board President Todd Stoger.
In an interview this morning on WLS' Don Wade & Roma Morning Show,
...

Rep. Mike Quigley is busy getting up to speed on all of the
legislation moving through Washington, but he still finds some time to
stick it to his old rival in Cook County, Board President Todd Stoger.
In an interview this morning on WLS' Don Wade & Roma Morning Show,
the former commissioner criticized the county code requirement that a
four-fifths majority is needed to override a veto by the board
president, an issue he has raised consistently since 2003:

I have looked at this. I don’t think there is a city, town,
county, state that has such an extraordinary vote required to override
the executive’s veto. And we’ve warned this day might come.
Unfortunately it did. I hope it wakes folks up in Springfield to pass a
bill that changes it.

A bill that would do just that is ready to go. SB1868,
introduced by Sen. Dan Kotowski (D- Mt. Prospect), would lower the required vote total to
three-fifths of the board's members, effective immediately upon
passage. On April 1, it passed out of the Senate 57-0 (with Democratic Chicago Sens.
Martin Sandoval and Kwame Raoul voting present) and it's now sitting in
the House Rules Committee. As Crain's Greg Hinz noted last week, that's often where Speaker Michael Madigan
sends bills to die. According to Rep. Paul Froehlich
(D-Schaumburg), a House sponsor, it will take "dynamite" to free the
bill. But who ever said Madigan has too much power?